


Attitude Adjustment

by LovelylilKitten



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Apologies, Platonic Kissing, mettaton realizes he's an asshole and tries to get better, true end spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 07:12:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelylilKitten/pseuds/LovelylilKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mettaton finally wakes up after his fight with the human only to feel his sins crawling on his back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attitude Adjustment

_Rebooting…_

_Rebooting…_

_Loading…._

_Loading data…_

_Loading voice files…_

_Loading memory data…_

_Loading…_

_Power on…_

_Activating audio devices…Activating ocular devices…Activating…_

 

The feeling of Mettaton’s senses suddenly reactivating was something he knew he’d never be able to get used to, being as jarring and disorienting as it was. If he wasn’t a ghost turned robot, he was sure he could describe the way he felt experiencing rebooting as “nauseous”. Before opening his eyes, he tried to get his bearings straight.

The last thing he could remember was… the human. He was fighting the human, yes. Automatically, the specific memory file from before he ran out of power played, allowing him to know the exact details. He had managed to get the employees of the core to rearrange everything from what was in Alphys’ blueprints and deactivated the elevator. Then came trapping the human in a room with himself, giving some…interesting dialogue about Alphys before the human flipped his switch and-

That’s right. His new body was revealed! And all of those viewers! The ratings! Even without his arms and legs he remembered feeling extreme happiness. And then extreme sadness set in at the sound of Napstablook’s voice.

He exited the memory file when it ended. Eyes still closed, he could hear someone shifting things around next to him, lifting heavy items and then dropping them, as if they were frantically looking for something specific.

_Activating synthetic nerves..._

Suddenly Mettaton could feel the damage from the fight. The weird empty feeling of not having his arms and legs set in and he let out an involuntary groan, regretting asking Alphys to install a sense of touch into his body.

“Metta- Oh thank god!”

He opened his eyes slightly to see the doctor herself. A look of relief washed over her face as she turned to him, carrying whatever tool she had been looking for.

“I-I’m so glad you’re okay!” She exclaimed.

“Of course darling,” Mettaton attempted to sound as confident as normal, but he wasn’t in the greatest condition. The words came out strangely, slightly slurred and filtered in static. Is this what it feels like to be tired? “I merely ran out of juice.”

“I figured a-as much.” It looked like she had already begun repairs on him, fixing his shoulders and replacing some wires. She grabbed a new arm and started connecting the wires before she could fix the appendage into the socket. “It’s just, you were d-damaged pretty badly when I-I finally got in there… I was nervous th-that, well- I was scared that the damage might have been w-worse than it was. I mean, your soul’s container had some scratches!”

Mettaton looked down his body to the glass by his abdomen that protected his “heart”, which was the place in which they had originally stored his soul before installing him into his new body.

“You know that some of my best attacks come from there,” he said. He tried to give a lighthearted laugh to ease her, only to release even more static that made Alphys unsteady. Mentally, Mettaton cursed at himself.

“It’s t-too dangerous! I equipped you with weapons so you w-wouldn’t have to risk it!” She finally got the arm to lock into place. “Hey could you, uhm, do a few small movements to s-see if everythings, uh, connected right?”

Obliging, Mettaton moved his arm around, curled and uncurled his fingers, shifted his shoulder, bent his elbow. “I think everything is working fine sweetie.”

“That’s good, now if you could hold the other arm while I do this side it would make th-things a little easier.”

“Sure thing.”

The two of them sat in silence for a while as Alphys worked. Having nothing better to do than get lost in thoughts, he simply watched what she did. As clumsy and uncoordinated as she could be, he had to admit that she was graceful when it came to technology. Her hands were skilled and quick to twist the wires together, special rubber gloves she had invented saving her from being electrocuted.

She seemed so happy to see he was okay. It only made his nausea worse. He hadn’t treated her very well had he? Ever since he started out his career as a television persona he had started spending less and less time with her, mostly only ever socializing with her if his new body had been involved. He always used his career as an excuse as to why he was too busy but who was he kidding? He had made enough content that he could play reruns for a month and no one would notice.

The human was a mutual interest for the bother of them. Originally Alphys and Mettaton planned to simply kill them, tricking out Mettaton in anti-human weaponry and a beserker mode so the two of them could extract the human’s soul for King Asgore. This would allow him to finally break the barrier trapping the monsters underground. Later on, Alphys became so wrapped up in treating the human like an anime protagonist that she decided to come up with a different plan: get the human to want to stay underground. She would get to become friends with the human and become a part of their adventures. The only thing was that she needed an antagonist.

Originally Mettaton was humored by the idea. It was a great chance to practice his acting skills. Not only that but he was allowed to televise his meetings with the human. He just had to let the human win every time, Alphys helping them “scrape by” and survive the encounters. He was also given artistic liberty for the context of each encounter, which excited him greatly. Writing the song for the musical was his favorite thing about the whole plan.

However, he became bored very quickly, putting less and less effort into everything as time went on. For whatever reason, he became annoyed with Alphys’ plan and with her herself. He wanted to spite her.

Acting selfishly he fought the human for real, attempting to take their soul for himself so he could leave the underground and become a star on the surface. Hearing Napstablook’s voice though…

The sound of his other arm snapping into place brought him out of his thoughts. Before he could be asked to he tested out the functionality, moving his arm around, nodding silently to let Alphys know everything was fine.

“Okay, so now I have to install new legs for you and, u-um- well, I have to replace your whole lower body-“

“I’m a terrible person, aren’t I?”

The statement shocked Alphys to hear, snapping her head back to him. He couldn’t bring himself to return her gaze, choosing to look at the table beneath him instead. He grimaced to himself, furrowing his brow and trying to collect his thoughts to figure out where to continue from that outburst.

“N-no! I don’t th-think that!” Alphys exclaimed.

“It’s true though, isn’t it darling?” He bit his lip. “I’ve taken you for granted. I’ve done nothing but treat you poorly, avoid you, bad talk you, et cetera. Yet you were so worried about me, despite all of that. You were happy to see I hadn’t been damaged… beyond repair I mean.”

“I- I…”

“This isn’t even the first time my selfishness had caused me to hurt the people I care about too! I keep doing this kind of thing and yet I don’t try to stop myself!” He could feel his eyes begin leaking. “And GOD why did you actually install a crying function? I was so stupid to ask for that.” His new hands covered his face, the gloves being stained by the pink liquid that came down his metallic cheeks. It smelled like motor oil.

“M-Mettaton… stop-”

“I’m an asshole. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop it!”

His arms dropped slightly at her outburst. He’d never heard her yell like that before. When he finally looked at her he saw that she was crying too, tears dripping from under her glasses. She walked closer and took his hands in hers, staring at him passionately, and eyes full of as much determination as a normal monster could muster under non-dire circumstances.

“I-It’s true. The way you acted did hurt. To be honest I could hear s-some of those things you said from behind the door-“

“I’m so sorry-“

“But! You’re my friend! I c-care about you a lot and your well-being is important to me.”

Mettaton held onto her hands tighter.

“Even after all of that…”

“You know what you did w-was wrong! And I forgive you for it, as long as you can improve.”

“I’m going to end up acting like that again, I just know it. I’m going to hurt you again, Alphys.”

“Not if w-we work on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in theory, almost all habits are breakable. It would take a long time and effort, but i-if we work together, we could get you to break those selfish habits of yours.”

“Are you offering to help?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you darling. Really. Thank you so much, for everything.” He pulled brought her hands to his face, kissing the backs.

“Do you wanna st-stay like this or get back to repairs?”

“Oh yes, we should probably continue with the second one.” He released her and let her get back to work, wiping at his face to remove all of the fluid that had escaped him. In the corner of his eye he caught Alphys picking up her glasses and rubbing her eyes with her sleeve, doing the same.

“Okay so I’m going to have to lay you down for this part. Is that okay?”

“Yes sweetheart that’s fine.”

He was used to looking at the ceiling for long periods of time, but it felt weird to do so without eating something first. He could feel as every part of his lower body was connected, which was awkward when only the knee joint was connected on one leg and an ankle in the other. He folded hands over his midriff as he began to get feeling in more of his body.

“Hey,” Mettaton called.

“Hm?” Alphys responded, not looking up from what she was doing.

“If we’re fixing my bad habits, then you have to promise you’ll work on yours too.”

“What? I-I don’t have any bad habi-“

“Have you eaten anything aside from instant noodles lately?”

“Oh! I’m, um- well, I ate, uhm… I had some cookies yesterday.”

“Sweetie…”

“I know…”

“You need to take care of yourself! If I’m going to start being less selfish, you need to try and start living normally again.”

“That’s easier said than d-done, Mettaton.”

“I know it has something to do with that thing you don’t want to tell me about, whatever it is. I won’t make you talk about it, though talking might make it better. However, you have to move past it, okay hun?”

“…I’ll try…” There came that familiar click. “Alright there we go. Now you c-can try out your legs.”

Immediately Mettaton sat up and jumped off the counter to his feet. He wobbled for a second, his balance stabilizers kicking in. Once they had fully loaded up he tested out a few steps before setting out in a full on strut, turning on his heel and winking at Alphys. She couldn’t keep herself from snorting at him, which made him smile.

“Thank you dearie! I promise not to wreck myself so quickly next time.” He walked back over to Alphys, arms wrapping around her in an embrace. He kissed her forehead, making her giggle more and more.

“It’s n-no problem.”

The two of them stayed like that for a while before he let go of her, fixing her glasses and straightening her coat out for her.

“Hey, Alphys sweetie?”

“What is it?”

“Do you want to watch some Mew Mew Kissy Cutie?”

“DO I!?”

“Alright, I’ll go grab the disk and you can go get comfortable by the television.”

Before they could do anything, a letter slid in from under the door. The two looked at each other, then back to the letter.

“O-Oh n-no, is that another letter…? I don’t want to open it…”

Mettaton frowned at her.

“C-can’t I just slide it back out…?” She smiled meekly at him, only to have him make a madder face in response. She sighed before talking again. “N… no… I can’t keep doing this. I’ll read this one.” She hobbled over to where the letter had slid to, picking it up between her fingers. One of Mettaton’s eyebrows lifted when he noticed her struggling. “I-It’s shut k-kind of strongly, isn’t it? Wait a second-“Before she could do anything Mettaton had already walked over with the chainsaw.

It took a lot of effort but the letter was finally free from the envelope. Alphys read it over, only to become flustered and frustrated. When she started heading back toward the door, Mettaton backed up so that whoever was at the door wouldn’t see him, feeling it might be awkward if they knew he was there. For all he knew it was one of those people who had been sending a million letters a month and was confronting Alphys and he’d rather not get in the middle of that. As he was walking out, he could hear the conversation that went on.

“Hey, if this is a joke, it’s… Oh my god?” He stopped in his tracks hearing Alphys say that. “Did YOU write this letter? It wasn’t signed, so, I had no idea who could have… Oh my God. Oh no. That’s adorable!”

Okay, now this was sounding like something he’d be okay with getting in the middle of. Doing his best to stay out of sight, he tried to sneak a peek at who was at the door. At the mere sight of the blue and purple striped shirt, Mettaton knew it had to be the human.

“And I h-had no idea you, um, wrote that way!” Alphys continued. “It’s surprising, too… After all the gross stuff I did… I don’t really deserve to be forgiven.”

There was a pang in his heart. How could she forgive him for all the terrible things he did yet think she was undeserving of the same? That wasn’t fair at all.

“Much less, um… This?” Even from behind he knew she was making that awkward smile. “And so passionately too… You know what, okay! I’ll do it! It’s the least I can do to make it up to you! Y-yeah! Let’s go on a date!”

Mettaton could feel his jaw drop and had to feel it to make sure it hadn’t fallen off. The human had a crush on Alphys? That was incredible, really. He knew Alphys was a hopeless romantic, crushing of both Undyne and King Asgore, but the human seemed to be one of the few that were safe from her feelings. Mettaton was sure she’s might even had had a thing for him for a while, or at least his body. She got sweaty when they had made their original plans for it. Though her crush on him didn’t last, probably because his form didn’t fall into the beefcake category like her biggest two crushes did.

Before the date could start, Alphys shut the door and grabbed Mettaton, rushing them upstairs.

“What-?”

“Y-You have to help me get ready! Quick!”

“Oh! Of course!”

Once at the top floor, he grabbed the one nice dress Alphys owned. The only reason she even had it was because he had gotten it for her, knowing she’d need it some day. He shook the dust off of it before handing it to Alphys who had frantically undressed. It was nice that she wasn’t nervous about changing in front of him, as it showed how much she trusted him.

“Hold my glasses?”

“I’ll clean them too.”

“Thank you so much!”

Once she had her glasses back on and she was zipped up into her dress, she started running back downstairs. Mettaton came to a moment of realization before chasing after her, catching her before she could escape out the door again. Confused, she yelled “Uhhh, sorry! I’m still getting dressed!” so that the human on the other side could hear.

“If you go on your date, what am I supposed to do?”

“Do about what?”

“My bad habits!”

“Oh, wait, you wanted to start on that immediately?”

“Well, I wanted to do it while watching Mew Mew Kissy Cutie, but…”

“Oh, uhm, well, maybe you could write down some of the other things you’ve done to hurt people?”

“…Why?”

“Well, then you can think about how you can f-fix your mistakes. You know, uhm, who you should apologize to and how you could m-make it up to them.”

“Oh, that makes sense I guess.”

“There should be a pen and some paper on my desk… you might have to search a bit though…”

“Okay, okay, I get it. You can go on your little play date know.”

“I’ll see you later?”

“I’ll text you so we can reschedule our anime session.”

And with that Alphys was out of the door. Mettaton lifted his boot to see the letter, as Alphys must had dropped the thing in her rush. He bent over to pick it up and read it over, before realizing an important detail.

That was Undyne’s handwriting.


End file.
